Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/291

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CHAPTER XII

AMERICAN LIBRARIES (continued) THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY (CHICAGO), BUFFALO, MINNEAPOLIS, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, MILWAUKEE, THE PRATT INSTITUTE (BROOKLYN), THE PEA BODY INSTITUTE (BALTIMORE)

Reference has already been made in Chapter III. to the plans for library building which the late Dr. W. F. Foole of Chicago advocated, and in the Newberry Library, opened in 1896, he had an opportunity of carrying out his views.

The portion now built occupies one frontage only of a block 318 feet by 213, which has a street frontage on all four sides. The entrance is placed in the centre of one of the longest sides, and the building when completed is intended to reach round the whole square, in a series of rooms 45 feet deep, each lit from a central court on one side, and from the public streets on the other. Each floor is fireproof, and each room in which books are stored is to be separate and have no communication with other rooms, the only means of access being from staircases and elevators in the inner court, which give admittance to a corridor on each storey running around the interior of the building.

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